Feds instruct Huntsville to ignore Alabama Accountability Act
Despite Alabama law allowing all students to flee “failing” schools, Huntsville will not allow hundreds of requested transfers.
“Under the Alabama Accountability Act,” said Superintendent Casey Wardynski, “we don’t have to do any.”
In fact, district officials say Huntsville will grant just eight Accountability Act transfers this year, or one fewer than the number of “failing” schools in the city.
That’s all the system has space for, say school officials, after handling federal transfers.
Specifically, the U.S. Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund this summer instructed Huntsville to ignore the transfer requirements of the Alabama Accountability Act in favor of federal transfers based on race.
And that has created problems, said Laurie McCaulley, president of the school board.
“We have a lot of parents who bought into the Alabama Accountability Act, and thought they had guaranteed rights that don’t exist,” said McCaulley.
The 2013 Alabama law, passed by GOP lawmakers with little input from educators,